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Funky Winkerbean, 3/18/17

So Funky walked up the hill to that mysterious abandoned house and then … spent the week walking around in it eerie emptiness? And then looked at an old painting on the wall for a while. And today, in the first dialogue of the whole week, thought-balloons some stuff that I guess is supposed to be profound but is actually just a symptom of a major depressive disorder. I honestly don’t know if this is a Significant Location From Storylines Past or just a Metaphor Symbolizing Life’s Impermanence, and I also don’t know what’s supposed to be happening here, but in a larger sense I feel like I know exactly what’s happening here, you know?

Judge Parker, 3/18/17

You’ll recall that when Derek was first introduced to this strip, he was Honey Ballinger’s boyfriend but Sophie liked him she decided to steam him away, but then suddenly (and by “suddenly” I mean “four years later,” because this is Judge Parker after all) Derek was Sophie’s boyfriend and she was worried Honey Ballinger was going to steal him away from her. This could’ve all been chalked up to the silly, transient nature of teen relationships, but as today’s final panel reveals, the question of who exactly was dating whom has abruptly become extremely serious.

Mary Worth, 3/18/17

Pretty sure that this is what you’d get if you were making a movie and directed your actors to “do a bunch of cocaine and then yell whatever comes into your head about cruises as loud and as fast as you can.”

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Judge Parker, 3/16/17

Oh, hey, good news, finally the some of the escaped/released teens in Judge Parker are talking to the police, and telling their disturbing tales of captivity! I’m sure some of you sickos have been waiting for the moment when Sophie’s sexy teen lust object Derek finally dropped his pants, and now I hope you’re suitably chastened and muttering “Not like this, not … like this” under your breath.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 3/16/17

Ironically, as panel three demonstrates, the number one cause of shoulder injuries in Hootin’ Holler is flappin’ yore arms around as you laugh uproariously at yore own li’l joke.

Dennis the Menace, 3/16/17

“Like here, in the crawlspace of this abandoned house where all the bodies are. Definitely she wouldn’t want me hanging out here!”

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Gil Thorp, 2/24/17

Today’s Gil Thorp doesn’t necessarily offer a thematically unified big laugh, but is full of little hilarious details that come together to show why I love this strip so much:

• The Freezy Bomb Boys couldn’t wait to shower or change after practice before bursting into Coach Thorp’s office with their latest half-baked theory
• Coach Thorp apparently thinks Inspector Gadget is a good go-to insulting reference when it comes to amateur detective work, even when said detectives are not, in the poetic words of the Wikipedia article on the subject, “clumsy, dim-witted cyborgs”
• Coach Thorp has misremembered Inspector Gadget’s name, and thus may have forgotten much else about him, like the fact that he’s a cyborg, and has to be smugly corrected by Coach Kaz
• Coach Kaz is wearing a black shirt and white tie like he’s the keyboardist for a middlingly derivative 80s new wave band
• This whole thing hinges on Aaron’s basketball ability being tied to … his mother’s pay schedule, maybe?
• Final planel: BAM, a classic Gil Thorp smash cut to something semi-comprehensible happening somewhere else, in this case Aaron and Molly nuzzling at a rave, where NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

Anyway! I very much look forward to this all being resolved in a wholly unrealistic fashion soon, and then the Mudlarks subsequently failing to make the playdowns.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/24/17

Do you guys think that the cop in panel two is meant to be expressing genuine love for Montoni’s, or that he’s just being extremely sarcastic as he writes Funky a ticket he definitely deserves? It’s hard to tell with this strip. I mean, either would be good, because both involve Funky being humiliated, but I feel like I want to better understand the texture of the schadenfreude I’m experiencing here.

Judge Parker, 2/24/17

Shoutout to this Judge Parker flashback for doing a pretty good job of depicting Abbey and Neddy in the Harold LeDoux era. I find the third panel pretty puzzling, though. The kids have already been let go! How are the kidnappers going to do anything with them? Unless … I was right, and “Sophie” really is a replicant replacement? As are the other supposedly free children? And this is the first step towards replacing the entire universe of Judge Parker with a better, cleaner race of beings, i.e., cyborgs? That still doesn’t seem like much of a money-making scheme, to be honest.

Mark Trail, 2/24/17

I’m not sure how often customs agents in foreign countries ask Americans travelling to America what their purpose for traveling to America is, but it sure gives Chris “Dirty” “Smith” a chance to answer in a Transparently Evil fashion! It’s not going to be very “sporting” when Mark punches Dirty’s eyepatch right off, but he’s going to have to learn the limits of his hunting abilities himself, I guess.